


Spiderwebs

by Elycien



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-21
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elycien/pseuds/Elycien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Egbert's relatively peaceful life is turned upside down when he is suddenly sold to one Vriska Serket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [contra legem](https://archiveofourown.org/works/276602) by [OtherCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat). 



It wasn’t so bad, really, with Master. All things told, John Egbert considered himself fortunate. The blueblood had a large household and often was content to let things run themselves. John was the only human among the slaves, but the species barrier didn’t hold him back and he knew and had befriended nearly everyone working there. And while their owner could not be called a kind man - John had never met a troll who was, exactly, _kind_ \- he was not needlessly cruel. John had only been beaten a few times, and by now he pretty much knew how to avoid that. Do as you’re told, don’t speak until spoken to, do not under any circumstances approach Master when a certain amount of time has elapsed since his last visit from his moirail. He’d figured out how things worked around here, and he was more or less okay with it.

John knew how lucky he was. And he also knew how quickly things could change. It was still a surprise one night when he found himself in his master’s study, facing a tall cerulean-blooded troll woman. She was beautiful - it was the first thing he noticed about her - but she also looked vicious, feral, her face and eyes bearing that same hard, calculating look he’d seen in the few sea-trolls he’d met. She glanced him over once with an appraising eye before looking back to his master.

“Looks kind of scrawny,” she said. “And humans are supposed to be fragile. You’re kidding me, Equius.”

“The slave is a hard worker and obedient,” John’s master replied. “He is quiet and respectful. I am doing you a favor by selling him to you, Serket.”

“At this price? I could have three from Korgam’s market.”

“Korgam?” Equius took a deep, shuddering breath which John recognized as an attempt to control himself. The slave kept his eyes fixed on the ground, not wanting to attract attention. “That... that lowlife. He is a _fraud._ He does not comport himself as one of his stature ought and he freely engages in such... _lewd_ activities...”

John stole a glance at Serket. She was smirking. She knew she’d touched a nerve, had touched it on purpose. “Which is why I came to you, Equius, _naaaaaaaaturally._ ” She drew the word out, long and sarcastic. “All I’m saying is that you don’t offer up much competition. You’re letting him beat you into the ground.”

Equius flushed and his nostrils flared. “I am not a slave dealer, Serket. I do not need to... _beat_ him at anything, as you say. He is beneath my notice.”

“No, but you’re dealing one to me now, aren’t you?” She grinned more widely. “Come, Equius. Highblood to highblood. Be reasonable.”

“What is your price?”

Serket named one. This was about when John tuned out of the conversation; no matter how many times he listened to this, it still turned his stomach to hear the monetary value placed on his head. It didn’t mean much to him, anyway, hearing prices so high above the allowance he was given that they were practically meaningless. Instead he watched Serket, trying to get a feel for her, safe for now as her attention was entirely on his master. What he saw was not encouraging. Everything about her sent a nervous tremor running up his spine, an instinctive desire to get out of her presence like the feeling instilled in him by one of Master’s rages. Except she wasn’t raging; she was completely composed, and that was so much worse.

She would not be lenient, or compassionate, or courteous. John could tell that much. He wondered what a troll like her wanted him for; most of what he did now was manage Equius’s business affairs. He’d worked his way up from menial house service as his industriousness and respectful attitude caught the master’s eye.

He wondered if he’d be able to collect his things, or say goodbye to any of his friends. Probably not. When Equius had sold others, they’d simply vanished.

At last Equius and Serket came to an agreement. The troll woman pricked her finger and signed the contract, drawing her symbol with a flourish in her own blood. Equius did the same. They nodded curtly to one another and Serket came over to him at last, inspecting him more closely than before, walking around him with a critical eye. John’s scalp prickled.

Serket took his chin in her hands and tilted his head back so he could look her in the eye; she was a few inches taller than him. “My name is Vriska Serket and I am your mistress now, human,” she said. “Your name?”

“John Egbert, mistress,” John said softly.

“Good. Come along, slave.” She turned on her heel and strode off - John found himself wondering why she’d bothered to ask his name if she wasn’t even going to call him by it - and waved an impatient hand indicating for him to hurry up. He hastened to do so, wondering what just kind of life he was running toward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as previously mentioned, this fic was heavily inspired by OtherCat's wonderful [contra legum](http://archiveofourown.org/works/276602) which is a fantastic fic and you should read it. I am not so much playing in that author's sandbox as I am going out and buying the same brand of sandbox for myself, and then sitting down and building my own versions of their sandcastles. And then probably weeping when mine don't turn out as nice. Oh well.
> 
> So basically I'm messing around and I have no idea how far I'll take this but it's been a fun ride so far!


	2. Chapter 2

John’s head snapped to one side as Vriska backhanded him viciously. He could taste blood on the inside of his cheek, but fortunately there didn’t seem to be much of it. He waited a moment and then carefully began, “Mistress, I--”

She hit him again. Harder. He could have fought to maintain his balance but didn’t, allowing himself to be knocked sprawling onto the floor. Quickly he removed his glasses and captchalogued them for safekeeping - if a beating was imminent, he couldn’t afford to let those get smashed, considering he didn’t know whether or not Vriska would care enough to replace them. He doubted she would.

It was his fault, he supposed; he should have been more cautious. In Equius’s household, he had rarely interacted with the master himself and was in the habit of getting his orders from the overseers which the blueblood hired. Approaching his master without first being summoned would have been an incredibly foolish thing to do. So after completing the tasks which Vriska had set him in a surprisingly short time, he had not gone to find her but instead had respectfully approached a troll in one of the ship’s corridors and asked him what his next duties were to be.

He’d thought it was a safer idea than approaching Vriska herself in the midst of her work, safer by far than allowing himself to be caught idle. But apparently, speaking to any of her crew was a grave offense. First lesson learned.

She stepped forward and stood over him. John stiffened, bracing himself for another blow, and made no move to get up. “You do not speak without permission,” she said, her voice cold and dangerous. “You do not approach _any_ of my crew without my _express_ permission. You will not even follow their orders unless I say you are to do so. Do I make myself quite clear?”

John swallowed. “Yes, Mistress.”

She took a step back, and with her no longer looming over him, he felt a little safer about sitting up. It was risky when she hadn’t told him to do so, sure, but at least in kneeling he had some measure of dignity. Vriska watched but said nothing. He bowed his head. “Will you allow me to ask a question?” he said.

Her gaze was cold and inscrutable. “Speak,” she said.

“If I finish my duties ahead of schedule, what would you have me do?” He tensed, unsure what to expect from her response. But she didn’t do any of the things he expected: after a long silence, she laughed.

“I think I’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen again, won’t I?”

He dared to look up at her again, when she didn’t seem to mind him looking her in the eye he didn’t drop his gaze. She was still a formidable presence, and it wasn’t even lessened by the fact that she looked pretty blurry right now without his glasses on. He could tell she was smiling, and that fact did not reassure him in the slightest.

“You will return to the slave quarters now and report to me at dawn.”

“Yes, Mistress.” He stood up, slow and graceful and cautious, never taking his eyes off her. John bowed low, then turned and walked off, making sure to keep his posture straight and his gait even. If he didn’t, he was pretty sure he would break into a run. He didn’t dare retrieve his glasses until he was out of her sight.

Encounters with Vriska always made him feel as if he had just narrowly escaped death. Or at least serious injury.

The slave quarters were small, due to the size constraints of living on a ship. The room which all of Vriska’s slaves shared contained three recuperacoons, two beds, and one other structure which John honestly had no idea about. He’d never seen anyone using it, so he assumed it must have been intended for an alien which Vriska no longer owned. The two rustbloods were already curled in their recuperacoons and it looked as if the other alien had not returned to claim its bed yet (John had not yet determined whether it was male or female, or neither). He glanced at the resting trolls, or at least at their horns poking out of the sopor slime, and felt an odd pang of homesickness for the relatively spacious slave quarters at Equius’s hive, his friends, the constant comforting buzz of conversation between slaves who were off duty. Vriska’s slaves were a little stand-offish, and while he didn’t exactly blame them, it was lonely.

John climbed nimbly up to his bed - there wasn’t really a ladder, but he’d always been agile and good with heights anyway - and curled up, pulling his blanket over himself. His face was still aching where Vriska had hit him, but it wasn’t all that bad really. He could still sleep and work and that was what really mattered.

He’d get used to living here. To the quarters, to his fellow slaves, to... even to Vriska. He had to.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shameless plug: I've opened up an askblog based on this AU, which can be found [here.](http://askslavejohn.tumblr.com) Not everything on that tumblr is "canon" to this story, but if you're enjoying the fic you might enjoy what I've been putting up there, too!

It wasn’t really a punishment, Vriska had to admit to herself. She wasn’t sure whether it was cruelty or curiosity which led her to saddle John with such an impossibly high workload. True to her word, finishing ahead of schedule had no longer been a problem. There were barely enough hours in the night for John to finish his duties; he was rising earlier and returning to quarters later than any of the others. Five nights later, he looked exhausted every time she saw him.

And yet he did everything he asked of her and never once complained. Vriska was starting to admit to herself that it was a little impressive. Because John was, as Equius had told her, perfectly obedient and respectful, and it wasn’t because he was too broken to do anything else. He bowed when she passed him, kept his eyes downcast, called her “mistress” - but when his eyes did meet hers they were calm and unafraid behind the glaze of exhaustion. When she once shoved him for not moving fast enough for her taste, he didn’t bristle or retaliate, but he didn’t cringe either. There was life in his eyes - not the angry spark of defiance, but something... something that set him apart from the multitude of dull-eyed, downtrodden slaves she’d seen and owned. Something bright and improbably strong.

Something about that made her want to toy with him, push him harder and harder and see what it would take to break him. It was a desire constantly at war with the part of her which knew perfectly well how valuable John was. She didn’t think she’d ever had a slave who would have done this well under this level of pressure. Maybe Equius’s initial exorbitant asking price for John had been fairer than she had thought.

Not that she would have paid it anyway, of course.

Quite apart from everything else there was the way he moved. There was a strangely attractive grace to his movements, and Vriska got the odd sense that despite his docile nature, he could actually be dangerous if he was ever motivated to fight back. Vriska sometimes found herself watching him, studying him, in a way that distantly reminded her of how her lusus had watched prospective meals (and when she thought about it enough the similarity disturbed her, but she tried to put this out of her mind).

He was intriguing. She’d have to keep him around. If nothing else, he could prove to be an amusement.

==>

If there was one good thing about his extra workload, it was the fact that John had mostly been able to avoid interacting with Vriska’s crew entirely. Hopefully they knew the rules as well as he did, that Vriska’s slaves were off-limits, but he wasn’t counting on it and he dreaded the night he would have to refuse a command from one of them because Vriska’s orders took priority. It would probably be better than going against her, all things considered, but it still wasn’t going to be pleasant.

He wished he could speak more with his fellow slaves, learn more about them and about life on Vriska’s ship. That had proven impossible, however. He just didn’t have enough time. Part of him wondered if that was one of the reasons Vriska was working him so hard, using isolation as a tactic to keep him in line. It seemed to line up with what he knew of her. She was not the sort to beat him senseless as an intimidation tactic. Vriska played subtler games.

John was scrubbing down a corridor near the crew’s personal quarters when the sound of footsteps on metal alerted him to someone’s approach. Carefully he kept his eyes downcast and kept working, throwing his weight against the mop and scrubbing more vigorously than ever. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a troll coming down the corridor toward him - not Vriska, Vriska didn’t wear purple.

He swallowed hard. There were a couple seatrolls among her crew - probably disgraced in some way or they wouldn’t be running around with a disreputable cerulean-blood like her. He’d tried very hard to avoid any one-on-one encounters, but clearly that couldn’t last.

The seadweller’s footsteps slowed, then stopped, right in front of him.

“Slave.”

John paused in his work and stood up straight, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the floor at the seadweller’s feet. “Yes, sir.”

“Where is your mistress?”

“Likely on the bridge, sir.”

“Hn.” He could feel the troll looking him over, sweeping him with a detached gaze. “Go tell Nerale to meet me in my quarters in an hour. I have business with him.”

John steeled himself. “Sir, I have duties here from Mistress Serket, I can’t...”

“She isn’t here. I am. I gave you a direct order, slave.”

“I... apologize,” John said hesitantly, his heart pounding so hard that he could barely hear his own voice, “but I was told I am not permitted to carry messages except to Mistress Serket herself or follow any orders unless they were directly from--”

The seadweller’s hand shot out without warning and closed in a vice grip around John’s neck, crushing his windpipe. He choked, eyes going wide with fear as the troll’s claws dug into his skin hard enough to draw blood. The seadweller almost effortlessly lifted him until John’s feet were barely touching the floor and watched the human gasp for breath.

The troll hissed at him, baring needle-sharp teeth. “How dare you disrespect me,” he snarled. “Know your place, slave. I’m going to...”

“Kastim!”

The troll went pale at the sound of his name shouted with such ferocity and dropped his captive immediately. John collapsed into a heap on the ground, coughing and massaging his bruised throat. Looking up, he saw Vriska standing a few paces behind Kastim, her face twisted with a cold and deadly fury. He’d never heard her sound so angry.

Kastim immediately turned away from John with a nervous laugh and met his captain’s gaze. She was now coming straight at him, not running but still moving dangerously fast. “Captain--” 

Vriska punched him hard in the gut, and as he reeled from the blow, she grabbed his neck and slammed him into the wall. She had pulled a sword from somewhere - John hadn’t seen her toss her dice, but she must have - and now forced the point under Kastim’s chin, making him tilt his head back.

“If you  ever touch my property again,” Vriska said, her voice low and sharp and deadly, “I will make you wish you’d never hatched. Do I make myself quite clear?”

Kastim swallowed. “H-he - I only asked him to send a  message for me, Captain, your slave was blatantly disrespecting me--”

“I find that hard to believe,” Vriska snarled, pushing the blade up a little harder. “John knows his place. You, however...” She leaned in, her face inches from his, and her voice became dangerously quiet. Kastim looked petrified. “A message for Nerale, hm? You think I don’t know that the two of you have been scheming behind my back? You think I’m so  stupid that you could use my own slave against me? This is your last warning, Kastim. You take one  step out of line--” She jerked the blade away, leaving a thin purple line on the seadweller’s throat, and stepped back. Shakily, Kastim’s hand came up to gingerly touch the cut.

“I understand,” he said, audibly unnerved. John could have sworn that the seadweller was taller than Vriska, but she seemed to tower over him now, as if he’d shrunk. If he’d ever had any doubts about how his owner was able to control crewmembers much higher on the hemospectrum than she was, they were gone.

“You digust me,” Vriska snapped. “Get out of my sight. Now.”

Kastim didn’t need to be warned twice, scrambling away from her and running down the corridor in the direction he’d come. Vriska watched him go with narrowed eyes, and then turned to John, putting away the blade. Instinctively he tensed as her gaze fell on him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and at least her weapon was gone, but the fury had not quite left her face.

She stood over him and leaned down to reach for him, and John barely managed to keep himself from flinching. But all she did was take hold of his upper arm, and her grip was so unexpectedly gentle that John found himself staring at her in confusion. She pulled him to his feet, put her hands on his shoulders and held him at arm’s length, looking him over.

“Are you hurt?” Her tone was brusque. John shook his head.

“No, mistress.” It hurt to speak, his voice rasping.

Vriska leaned in, brushing her fingers lightly on the side of John’s neck. “You’re bruised,” she said, sounding displeased. “And it sounds as if he injured your throat. I’ll take it out of his hide.” She pulled her hands back, releasing him. “What were you doing in here, anyway?”

John swallowed painfully. “Cleaning, mistress.”

“You can stop. Go to the recovery block and tell the medic she has my permission to give you painkillers for your injury. You will then return to your respite block. Am I understood?”

For a minute John wasn’t sure he  had understood. There was absolutely no kindness or sympathy in her voice - he was well aware she was merely taking care of her property, ensuring a tool was in good repair - but it didn’t fit with the kind of callousness he had come to expect from her, either. He wouldn’t have expected her to give any thought to whether he was in pain. He’d had masters before who would have expected him to work with broken bones or worse, and it was pleasantly surprising to discover that Vriska might not be one of them after all.

He’d been silent for too long. She frowned. “Am I understood, human?”

John bowed. “Understood.” He half turned to leave, then paused. “Why did you stop him, mistress?”

“He would have damaged something that belongs to me,” Vriska responded easily. “I will not tolerate disrespect from my crew  or my property.” She looked John in the eyes, and he was able to hold her gaze for only a few seconds before biting his lip and looking down. “Now go.”

He bowed again and left, realizing with some surprise that he wasn’t quite as afraid of Vriska now. He could wind up on the receiving end of her violent wrath just as if not more easily than Kastim had, but the prospect became less and less frightening as the fine line he walked became more defined. With every encounter, she was less of an unknown. It was the unpredictability that frightened him most.

And it hadn’t escaped him that she hadn’t reprimanded him for asking that question.


End file.
